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She looks up at me, her palm clasped around my face once again. “I love you, Adriel. It feels just like yesterday when she took you from me. I’m still the same woman mourning the loss of her son, someone she wanted and loved with every fiber of her being. And for all my faults and my mistakes, I am so truly sorry.”
Pain lodges in the back of my throat. Her admission of love, it’s foreign and tasteless, yet it does something to me.
“I know nothing will undo what has been done to you, but all I have to give are my words and my actions going forward.”
My father comes to stand beside her. “It makes me sick to know what those animals did to you.” His jaw flexes. “And if I could, I’d kill them. I’m sorry too, son. You need to know we’re all here now, and for what it’s worth, you have a family.” He grips my shoulder. “And we want to know you. If you’ll let us.”
“I don’t know if I’m there yet,” I tell them honestly. “I don’tknow if I ever will be.”
She purses her lips. “I understand. Our door will always be open whatever you decide.”
“That’s right.” Patrick squeezes my shoulder before dropping his hand to his side. “And I’ll have you know Sophia has not stopped talking about you. She keeps asking when you’ll come around to see her.”
That has me grinning.
“She wanted me to give you something.” Mom reaches into her handbag to retrieve a square envelope.
Curiously, I take it. “What is it?”
Tearing it open, I find a birthday invitation.
“She’s turning seven and requested that we personally invite you and Kayla.”
Chuckling, I find the date a month from now, and on the back of it, in a child’s handwriting, it says,You better come, Uncle A!
Stuffing it back inside the envelope, I say, “Tell her thank you and I’ll think about it.”
“We will,” my mother says. “Thank you for giving us the time to talk to you. If there’s anything either of you ever need, please call.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I start for the door, needing time to process everything, needing to talk to Kayla. Having her to talk to now, it helps.
Silently, I lead them out back to where they came from.
As my mother shuffles out the door, she gives me one final, lingering look. “No matter what they took from you, you’ve still managed to turn out to be an amazing person.”
I snicker. “You have no idea who I am.”
“Maybe not.” She shrugs. “But you never hesitated to save Sophia. You just did it. And bad people don’t do that.”
Before I can rebut, she grabs my father’s hand, and together, they disappear into their car and out of my life for good.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
KAYLA
TWO WEEKS LATER
He holdsme in his arms before bed like he’s done it his whole life. This man is perfect, and the one thing that makes him even more attractive is that he doesn’t even see it. But I’ll be there to show him just how special he truly is.
It’s funny, though, how the man who once asked me if he was holding me right now knows just how to do it.
Staring off at the ceiling, I watch his mind race like it’s doing it right in front of me. I know what he’s thinking about. What we’ve spent days talking about. His family. His mother.
It’s hard. I get it. There’s so much trauma built up, like scar tissue. It’s hard to feel past those wounds. But I know he wants to. He’s never actually said it, but I know him well enough by now to see it there in his eyes.
Forgiving her, letting all that go, will give him healing, and in the end, that’s what matters to me. Maybe we’re not meant to heal in our entirety because not everything can be forgotten, but people can learn to live with their trauma and accept it without it weighing them down. It’s something I’ve been learning to do myself.
